Photos by Alf Johnston, MAKIN' TRACKS Jim Waters, John Twine and Fran Greig Our convoy, with Alf Johnston in the lead, “off track” and heading overland to the next GPS search When Rocketsfrom thefell Sky location Pam Waters cooking up a storm Jim Waters and John Greig holding Jim’s find of a piece of Blue Streak rocket motor casing It had been a very hard and frustrating day; tough on the vehicles and tough on us. We had succeeded in reaching two of a number of GPS locations we wanted to examine and had found nothing. The search had taken us across twenty kilometres of trackless desert. Sand dunes and spinifex clumps were the order of the day. We were tired, frustrated, and it was getting late, so we decided to call it a day and camp near a bore we had visited earlier. Arriving at the camp site, Jim and Pam Waters went for a bit of a wander, (as was their habit), to find the spot where they would lay out their swags for the night. Suddenly, Jim let out an almighty roar, and called us over to have a look. There at his feet was a ripped apart piece of metal about a metre and a half long and about 30 centimetres wide. Nothing unusual about that you might think? Well, this piece of metal was very unusual indeed. It was two skins of stainless steel, hinged longitudinally, with a honeycomb pattern We were on a cattle station east of Alice Springs. Our permit, which of lighter stainless keeping the two skins apart. And by the rainbow had been very difficult indeed to gain, only allowed us four days on hued and brownish stains on some parts of it, great heat had been site. It placed a number of restrictions on our movements, but did applied. But what was it? allow us access to each of our nominated GPS locations. Well, it was exactly the sort of thing we were looking for! It was, The day before Jim’s exciting find it had taken us most of the without question, a piece of a crashed rocket!! Eureka!! Jim had afternoon to access the area of the property we wanted to explore done it! Success on our first full day, purely by accident, and in a spot via a rough and little used station track which crossed about 60 nobody had suggested looking. The piece was later identified in kilometres of sand dunes. Knowing we had been granted the Alice Springs as coming from a Blue Streak rocket motor casing. That permit, a contact had very kindly provided us with the GPS location night, in celebration, Pam Waters cooked the first of a succession of of the start of the track. Another contact had given us the GPS extremely successful, and delicious, dampers and fresh bread. locations of areas they suggested might be worth examining for The objective we had set ourselves for this part of our 15,000 km crashed rocket remains. It had taken us just on a year of research to winter 2009 trip, was to try and find remnants of crashed rockets get to this point. launched from Woomera during its glory days, and we had already Next morning, we set off with the intention of accessing at least succeeded. Our mood quickly shifted from one of sombre reflection another three of our GPS locations. Again, it was necessary to and disappointment to one of euphoria. We were now all looking simply turn off another station track we were using at a convenient forward with great anticipation to tomorrow’s search. point and head cross country over the sand dunes and spinifex 34 TLCC NEWS JUNE 2010 Club members on this part of our 15,000 km, Winter, 2009 trip, were: Claude and Faye Donaldson – 80 series diesel auto Jim and Pam Waters – 4WD ■ UTES ■ VANS ■ TRUCKS ■ CARS 80 series diesel ■ Air Compressors ■ Air Conditioning Screens ■ Bike Racks ■ Bonnet Protectors ■ Boot Tidys ■ Bullbars Col Mawbey – 80 series diesel ■ Canopies ■ Car Fridges ■ Cargo Barriers ■ Cargo Liners ■ Cargo Mats ■ C.B. Equipment ■ Child Restraints ■ Dash Mats ■ Dicky Seats ■ Driving Seats ■ Dual Batteries ■ Electric Brakes ■ First Aid Kits Alf Johnston – 80 series diesel ■ Fire Extinguishers ■ Floor Mats ■ GPS ■ Hard Lids ■ Ipod® Interfaces ■ Ladder Racks ■ LCD Screens ■ Long Range Fuel Tanks ■ Luggage Pods ■ Mudflaps ■ Nudge Bars ■ Rak-a Van ■ Rear Seats John Twine – 100 series diesel ■ Recovery Gear ■ Roof Consoles ■ Rear Bars ■ Reversing Cameras/Sensors ■ Roof Pods ■ Roof John and Fran Greig – Racks ■ Roof Baskets ■ Roll Bars ■ Satellite Navigation ■ Seat Covers ■ Snatch Straps ■ Snorkels ■ Snow Chains ■ Side Steps ■ Spare Wheel Covers ■ Stone Guards ■ Suspension ■ Tail Gate Guards 78 series diesel ■ Tonneau Covers ■ Towbars ■ TV in car ■ Ute Liners ■ Ute Mats ■ Van Seats ■ Van Racking ■ Video/DVD Screens ■ Wheel Flares ■ Winches Windows Insulation material from a French Coralie John Greig plotting the next day’s search locations rocket motor mounds to reach the GPS points. We were utilising three GPS’s plus my laptop with OziExplorer moving map EXPERT FITTING showing our progress. The previous E: [email protected] W: www.tandc.com.au day we had devised a system where Alf Johnston took the lead with A: Cnr King Georges Rd & Moorefields Rd, BEVERLY HILLS Fran and I close behind guiding him via our GPS and the laptop. (Just 300 metres from Roseland’s Shopping Centre) Open Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5.00pm Col Mawbey followed running his GPS and his Hema Navigator. Saturday 8.30am to 2.00pm That enabled Alf to concentrate on the ground ahead to try to avoid the worst of it, particularly the ever present mulga stakes. We simply followed in Alf’s wheel tracks concentrating solely on the 9758 2500 navigation and giving him directions. Col provided back up. Jim and Pam Waters with their GPS provided additional back up. After about 12 kilometres of cross country travel we arrived at the first of the GPS positions. My GPS and OziExplorer told us we were within 2 metres of the location. Col’s GPS told him he was right on it. We were parked on the top of a dune with Col just one metre away right beside us. Col got out of his vehicle and wandered around to the front of it. Bending down he picked something up from the ground and nonchalantly asked: “What do you reckon this is?” He was holding a piece of silvery grey-black material. On closer examination, it was definitely man-made. It was about two and a half centimetres thick, concave on one side and convex on the other. The concave side was ground perfectly smooth and had obviously been fixed to something. The convex side was machined with alternating grooves about five millimetres wide. More searching turned up another dozen or so pieces. We also found pieces of grey cement like material, about three millimeters thick, with grooves on one side that mated perfectly with the grooves on the silvery grey- black material. So again, what was it? The location we were at was supposedly the site of a crashed French Coralie rocket motor. Could it have been some form of insulating material from the rocket motor? That answer turned out to be correct when the material was later identified as indeed being part of the insulation from a Coralie rocket motor. The grey cement like material was a fixing agent for the insulation material. Again euphoria gripped the group as we celebrated another successful find. The next GPS location was only about three kilometres away. It was supposed to be the site of a crashed dummy Italian satellite. Once more we headed off across country. Parked on the side of a dune our GPS’s told us we were right over the location, but a search of the immediate vicinity revealed nothing. As we had done the previous day, we spread out on foot and searched in ever increasing circles away from the GPS location. TLCC NEWS JUNE 2010 35 MAKIN' TRACKS Walking in the next swale, Col called out to us to come and have to pick up another that looked promising. Then, at an appropriate a look at some wiring and a sort of instrument he had just found. point we turned off the dunes to rejoin our original track. Searching further we uncovered two similar instruments, and then, Regaining that track however soon proved rather difficult, as we had bingo!, Col finds a complete cluster of about eight of them. Once to find a way through some thickly timbered country. Eventually, Alf again a sense of euphoria overtook us. We were absolutely elated at and Jim found a reasonable corridor which enabled us to rejoin the our success. This material was again later identified as being part of track. But just before we gained the track yours truly staked the side the instrumentation of a dummy satellite. of a tyre. Incredibly, that was the first and only puncture suffered by It had been a stunningly An instrument cluster from the Italian satellite the group on this part of the trip. The wheel was quickly changed successful day, but again it was housed in the nose cone of a Europa Rocket and the puncture was repaired in camp that night. getting late and we needed to The camping spot we were aiming for was a location we had regain the track we had been passed previously. It was in a dry creek bed, nicely protected, and using as a reference. During surprisingly offered quite a number of half 44 gallon drums with the earlier search Alf had dunny lids attached.